How many outfits do your children have?

[WindyCityMom]

Just what the title says. I'm trying to live a much simpler life (and in a less than 500sq ft basement apartment that's PRIORITY! We're also broke and can't afford a ton of clothing.

Each of my DDs has currently (for the winter):

DD1 2y8m:
-7 outfits (dresses w/ leggings/pants)
-3 pairs of wool unders (making these, work in progress)
-2 pairs of wool PJs (making these, again, work in progress!
-Winter hat & Mittens
-Underwear- a ton, because she's still PLing
-Snowsuit for winter
-Shoes: Rain boots, Crocs, Flex-Sole play shoes, & Still needs snow boots.
-Bathing suit because we go swimming @ the local park district.

DD2 8 months old
-7 outfits (some dresses w/ leggings, some l/s shirt+pants combos)
-3 sleepers/rompers
-2 pairs of wool unders (again, work in progress)
-2 pairs of wool PJs (again, work in progress)
-2 pairs of soft soled shoes, needs warmer shoes for winter though
-Winter snowsuit
-Winter hat & mittens
-Bathing suit for park district swimming


Currently, aside from those, my 8mo has two short sleeve onesies out for random hot days (few and far in between now) and my 2yo has two summer dresses. Everything else is packed away

I feel good about how we've simplified (but not OVER simplified) everything.

And I wanted to add that every.single.thing on that list except for a few of my toddler's dresses are from thrift stores Yep! I have spent about $100 on everything. I am SO broke right now, but all of the early morning treks to the secondhand store have been well worth it!

I can't seem to find any boots for either child anywhere So I may have to buy new. Hope not though! We're also going to need socks and a pilot cap for DD2 for indoors, but other than that I think we're good!

[lookatreestar]

yeah i really need to get our clothing together. the kids have such a mishmash. luckily we only ever wear shirts and shorts, dd wears dresses all the time. it is still hot here.

[mattemma04]

That is a great amount! My dh was just saying we have to much cloths,and I offered to purge all the closets.Given that I get cloths on 50 cent mondays I have no issue with removing items.

I have noticed everyone(including myself) wears the same few items,and we
keep other stuff it seems for sentimental reasons(gift or trip purchase).Dh and I have our thin/fat cloths,but again with cloths only 50 cents to $3 at the thrift we really should let go of a huge amount.

I filled a small room 2 times with stuff.Donated most of it over the summer.It was so nice to get rid of it all.Getting rid of cloths will be just as rewarding.It is rare when we need to buy from the regular store.Usually we get undies and shoes.If I am lucky we can find newish shoes/boots at the thrift otherwise I just buy those.

When we bought for dh's family at the regular store it was SOOOOOOO hard to pay full price for the cloths.Ofcourse you can't go gifting used cloths,but even dh commented that paying $10 for a shirt/shoes was crazy.We did it though.And lol,we get cloths gifts back from them.I gotta tell them to buy trinkets for us instead of cloths.They would never shop at thrift.Shoot I don't know if they even have those *used* stores in their country.

[Gray's Mommy]

We have way more than that, but are pairing down weekly. I am weeding out as my youngest outgrows & saving the best for #4. Everything else gets donated or passed to another friend.

[The4OfUs]

I have a 6 yo boy and a 4 yo girl. We have 2 weeks' worth of casual clothes for them, and 5 or 6 pair of pajamas (that's the number I shoot for every season). They're both in school this year, and with both DH and me working full time and being on the lazier end of domesticity, there's no guarantee we'll get laundry done once a week : . They each have 2or 3 "nice" outfits for the rare times we go out (nicer - not frilly or super fancy, but fancier than just a cotton playdress - dresses for her; khakis and oxford/polo for him).....plus an extra pair of "nice" jeans that aren't allowed to be worn on the playground so there are no grass stains on the knees so they have one pair that's presentable, because all of the other clothes they have get wrecked pretty quickly, they play HARD. They are especially hard on shoes and seem to outgrow them at an alarming rate, so I anticipate at least 2 or 3 pair of sneakers/play shoes for each of them for the fall/winter season. Fortunately, Target seems to have nice flexible soled shoes that last long enough well enough until they're in the next size. DS went from a 12 to a 1 (so through 3 sizes) in one year last year, so I can't justify spending $50 on one pair of shoes.

They are finally at ages where they're not needing new sizes every season so I'm getting more than one year out of some of the stuff, especially play stuff. They're each going to be able to wear their fleeces from last year this year, as well as their snowsuits and winter jackets/hats/gloves from last year, too - so no output there. DS may still fit in his snow boots from last year, and I have a pair DD should be able to wear that were DS's when he was younger. They both have rainboots and raincoats that still fit from last year. So no outerwear purchases this year. up I have a couple friends I do clothes swaps with who have kids older than mine/younger than mine, so I usually get a decent amount of stuff from them and them from me, which is great. It seems like now every other year will be a bigger purchasing year for us, and the other years they will be able to rewear most stuff with only minimal buying.

[Drummer's Wife]

Your amount sounds good - not too little, but not too big!

I have four kids - and I'd say currently they each have, oh, 30-40 outfits for this season (still wearing shorts and t-shirt sets). I have an addiction to buying cute kids' clothes, though - and it's why we have a whole room dedicated to being a 'family closet' - and it's still too full and overwhelming. Most of their winter clothes are packed in bins elsewhere. *sigh* I do plan to simplify and get rid of over half of what we have. I really do! Now that they are all in school, I don't really have an excuse. Part of my problem is that with 3 boys, all 2 years apart, I like to hold on to a lot of it to pass down. The other part of the problem is that it doesn't matter how many hand-me-downs are circulating, I still keep buying for the younger ones. My 3 yo has more clothes than my older two boys put together.

Thanks for listing what you have - definitely an inspiration to reduce the volume of clothing we have.

ETA: so, I just went and counted hoodies. The boys have 22 of them hanging up on one rack. See, I have issues! I get sucked into buying ones to go along with specific outfits.

[WindyCityMom]

It was nice to read the responses I really like that I've "downsized". I just had a few garage sales and I sold (in total, through all of them) $400+ of clothes. CLOTHES!!! And I donated three HUGE garbage bags full. (by HUGE I mean the size of 4 normal garbage bags!!)

[Tobi]

this is what we are going for this fall and winter, I wash at least once a week:
my 4 yo
3 pj
3 sunday outfits
1 pair tights
3 nice clothes (just a step up from play clothes)
5 sets of everyday clothes
10 pairs of underwear
8 pairs of socks
1 winter coat, hat and mittens
2 jackets/hat (rain and b/w season)
1 swim suit
3 shoes (1 tennies, 1 Sunday, 1boots)

[Nicole730]

My only concern would be your older daughter's bottoms. With PL here, we sometimes go through 3 pairs of underwears/pants a day. I don't like doing laundry, so it's nice that we have enough clothes if that happens. I'd probably try and get a few more pairs of leggings if I was you - they are small and should be inexpensive at a rummage/resale shop.

[WindyCityMom]

Thanks Nicole, good point! I also forgot to add that I have two wool sweaters + 1 cotton sweater per child

[EarthyMamaofDaisy]

My 3 year old often wears his pj shirt with sweatpants during the day to make an outfit. So he'd have 4 pairs of sweatpants and maybe 6 pairs of jammies and a few sweatshirts for colder days. And then maybe 6 t-shirt/shorts outfits for summer plus a few onesies.

[philomom]

Two weeks worth of school clothes. A couple of dress up choices, a bathing suit, a robe and something to wear to the Renaissance faire. Obviously, underwear, socks and some kind of jammy that fit for sleepovers.

[ILoveMyBabyBird]

i haven't even counted. I can say that while weeding through clothes yesterday of about 15 pieces, i had bought about 3 of them for 10$ total. Ds gets a lot of hand me downs. I sure do like them, but one thing i have learned is that 1) he will get tons more summer hand me downs than winter. I think it has to do with birthdays. My dn bday is august so he still gets summer clothes, but doesn't wear them much before they are outgrown. Then ds's bday is in july so he ends up getting quite a bit of summer clothes then. So I have decided I will not buy any summer clothes for ds from now until after his 10th bday (when we stop having family bday parties) because this year was so overwhelming in the tshirt/shorts dept. with hand me downs and gifts. I will continue to buy him a few nice sweaters and jeans/pants as he doesn't get those often as gifts/handmedowns and i like him to wear those in the winter time. I shop clearance mostly at the TCP outlet and have 2 cute sweaters i paid .89 each for that he will wear this winter. He does get quite a bit of sweats/track pants for hand me downs as well. Since I do get a lot of things free i tend to hang on to more than i should, but I have become a bit more ruthless about only keeping pieces that i or ds likes. I will let him pick out a couple character shirts that are in decent shape for wearing about the house, but i put my foot down about the hand me down hoodies. One aunt gave us about 6-7 hoodies all the same size, i picked out 2 nicer ones to keep, how many hoodies does 1 boy need?

One area i do do well is shoes, ds normally only has 2 pairs for each season, he doesn't get those in hand me downs, and i don't see much a need for more.

[OkiMom]

No clue right about now . I was just given a ton of hand me downs from a lady at church (which was awesome, now i don't have to worry about making more dresses right now!!) so I need to go through and see what Im keeping/getting rid of what and all. DD2 is starting to grow out of everything in her closet so I need to go through and drag out the next size up for her. At this rate the girls are going to end up in similar sizes soon (DD1's growth has slowed a lot and DD2 seems to be growing a LOT now). I do have to say its more than most have. I like to have enough to go 2 weeks between washes just in case someone is sick, Im sick, DH is gone and we are just busy, traveling, camping etc I don't have to worry about running out of clothing.

As for jackets/hoodies, my girls have 2 jackets each (one is a wind breaker type and one more sturdy just in case of a cold day) and probably 2-3 hoodies each. They wear the hoodies around the house when one is cold and the other hot. I figure its easier for one to throw on a jacket than the other to cool off since without the AC on it feels like a sauna in the house. Coldest it gets is 40s around here but when you are use to the 80s and 90s, 40s are cold to you. I worry if we ever move to a colder climate the kids are going to freeze!

[starling&diesel]

We aim for about four outfits that fit and are in season.
I think we have closer to six right now.
6 shirts (3 short/3 long)
3 pairs of sweatpants
1 pair of jeans
2 leggings
2 jumper dresses
We have a rainsuit, hoody, warm jacket and fleece onesie for outside.
She has rainboots, a pair of runners, and a pair of brown leather buster browns.
C'est ca! We also live in a small apartment, so no room for much more than that.
Oh, and hats, two of them.